Crypto Market Update (21 May 2018)

Bitcoin Globla News (BGN)

May 21, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire

General Market Outlook

The weekend showed more consolidation and downtrends for the market overall. The market cap of all cryptocurrencies is back to where it was in late April - around $380 billion. Bitcoin is at almost no change in the past 24 hours, but it looks like the Buy Markets Percentage has bottomed out, perhaps signaling an uptrend soon. Ethereum is down about 2% in the past 24 hours, sitting right around $700. Of top 100 coins, there is one major stand out today - Factom (FCT) is up over 25% in the past 24 hours.

Major Headlines

Venture capital firm sees Snapchat potential in cryptocurrencies

The venture capital fund behind Snapchat, Lightspeed, has also funded several blockchain related projects, but is now working out how to best hold the coins themselves. Right now talent is following blockchain and cryptocurrencies. When dealing with forging new technology start-ups, the passion of creators is often more important than money. Whether it’s youngsters like Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, or a company like Coinbase that headhunts the talent they need to achieve their goals - the energy is all coming to and expanding the blockchain space. Jeremy Liew who led Lightspeed Venture Firm to Snapchat is extremely bullish on Bitcoin - calling for the possibility of $500,000 per Bitcoin by 2030. But in a way, it’s almost irrelevant how much the cryptocurrency market continues to grow. The technology being developed along the way will continue to work its way into all types of businesses.

Will Zcash hold on?

Zcash (ZEC) was the lone green wolf in a sea of red cryptos recently. The New York based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini (founded by the Winklevoss twins) currently trades only BTC and ETH. After announcing Zcash will be added to the platform last week, the coin is up 50%. Much of May has brought consistent down trends for Bitcoin, Ethereum and most major altcoins. Other major privacy coins such as Monero have held steady. This sector of the crypto market will surely continue to make headlines because of their anonymous capability. They represent the kind of ownerless transactions that physical cash dollars traded by hand provides.

Former Visa CEO takes job with cryptocurrency bank

European cryptocurrency bank Crypterium announced that it has appointed Marc O’Brien, the former head of a payment network Visa in the UK and Ireland, as its new CEO.O’Brien was previously advisor at Mastercard, and advised Britain’s Royal Mint, on the possibility of creating a gold-backed digital token. Crypterium refers to their business as a “bank,” but it’s really more akin to Circle Pay, Square Pay or Paypal. The first of those two have shown strong interest in moving toward a cryptocurrency, however cryptorium is working purely on cryptocurrencies. They have their own native coin (CRPT) that would be exchanged for with other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on the fly when using the the platform to make everyday purchases. The “bank” has finished their ICO, but not launched their products yet. They hope to do so by this fall. Marc O’Brien on the blockchain and cryptocurrency space overall:

“I strongly believe that cryptocurrency is about to go mainstream, and we can be pioneers.”

Top 5 Gainers

WeAreSatoshi (WSX) +172.17% at $0.061399

Octanox (OTX) +96.43% at $0.043736

BitAsean (BAS) +81.28% at $0.023802

ShareX (SEXC) +69.23% at $0.019517

Nullex (NLX) +66.44% at $0.123605

Top 5 Losers

ReeCoin (REE) -63.38% at $0.000085

PeepCoin (PCN) -28.17% at $0.000756

PopularCoin (POP) -26.87% at $0.000337

MktCoin (MLM) -26.35% at $0.005438